“I thought you’d be in the hospital.”
He shook his head. “It’s not that bad. Four fractured ribs.
Stitches.” He put his hand to his mouth and then his cheek. He had stitches for his split lit, more just under his left eye. “They gave me painkil ers. It’s not too bad.”
“You should be in bed.”
“No,” he said. His expression was fierce.
“No?”
“They did what they did for a reason, Hannah. To get us away from Sam Fitzhugh, sure, but also to punish us. To shut us up and shut us down. The hearing is tomorrow.”
“How did you know I was here? In Charlottesvil e?” She didn’t want to talk about the hearing. She wasn’t ready.
Sean shook his head. “I have a tracker on my car. But that’s not the point.”
“You have a tracker on your car? Real y?”
“Jesus, Hannah. People track their goddamn iPads. I don’t want to talk about that. I want to talk about Sam. How far did you get with him? Had he told you anything before they jumped me?”
She would have to tel him. Oh God. There was no way around it.
“He told me the truth. He lied about the photo ID because Pierce and his grandfather asked him to.”
“Are you serious? He told you that? At the bar?”
“Afterward. He came to find me at the inn this morning, real y early. God, it feels like that was days ago now. He was upset about what Pierce did to you.”
Sean stared at her. “But wait a minute. You’ve talked to Rob since then, right? He told me you talked to him. You never mentioned this.”
“That was before Sam found me.”
“Hannah, don’t you lie to me. You haven’t told anyone about this, have you? You haven’t cal ed anyone, not Rob, not Jim. No one.”
She thought, briefly, about claiming a lost phone, and abandoned the idea. There was no point to it. She shook her head.
“Why not?”
It felt like minutes before she could speak. Minutes, while they sat in silence and she tried to force herself to meet his gaze and find the words.
“My mother used to know Dandridge when she was young. She told me that he kil ed my father, murdered him, and raped her and that no one ever found out. She told me that her only comfort was that Dandridge was in prison for another murder. That he was being punished for what he had done, even if the truth never came out.”
There was silence for a long moment, then Sean swore quietly.
“Jesus.”
“That’s why I came to Virginia,” Hannah said. “I came because I knew, with al your work, that there was a chance that he would be released. I thought that the knowledge that Michael Dandridge was free again would destroy her. She’s never been strong, you know.
But it wasn’t true. None of it was true.”
“You came to stop us.”
Hannah swal owed. “Yes.”
“It was al you,” Sean said. “The files. The motions that were messed up. You did that. And poor Hazel. Jesus. That job in New York. Camila tried to tel me. You set Hazel up, didn’t you? So that you could take her place.”
“Yes,” Hannah said.
“Oh my God, Hannah.”
“There’s more I need to tel you.” Quickly, she fil ed him in on her theory about Derek Rawlings. That he may have been the real murderer in the Fitzhugh case and the motivation behind Jerome Pierce’s actions in setting Dandridge up.
“I don’t know what I can do with al of that,” Sean said. “It’s too late. There’s no proof. Parekh can’t just go into court and start throwing accusations around. Pierce is stil a serving police officer.”
“I know.”
Sean’s face was tight with anger. “Is Sam Fitzhugh wil ing to give evidence?”
“Yes,” Hannah said. “But he’s fragile, I think. He’s not stupid. He knows he’d be stepping out onto the edge if he does. His grandparents would be horrified, and the whole town would turn against him. He knows that not only would he be accusing Pierce, he’d be admitting his own complicity in the thing. He was a child at the time but his grandfather wasn’t. If nothing else, press coverage could be brutal.”
“Okay. Okay. I get al that. But he’s wil ing to do it?”
Hannah hesitated. “He said he trusted me. He said he would do it if I said so. But his grandfather has taken him away. Up to some cabin they have in the hil s and there’s no cel service, no nothing.
So I’l need to drive there. To go and get him. He drew me a map.” A thought struck Hannah suddenly. She looked around the room, spotted her backpack, stood and scrabbled through it until she found the piece of paper folded and shoved deep into the front pocket. She breathed a sigh of relief.